Health Care and Pharmaceutical Bottom?

Health Care and Pharmaceutical stocks look to be making a bottom (maybe only a short term bottom) with higher lows and higher highs. I am not ready to jump on board and throw a party because the Health Care and Pharmaceutical tracking indexes and Healthcare iShares listed below are still trading below both their 50-d and 200-d moving averages. Long term they don’t look so hot but short term traders may think differently, profits can be had if you are willing to take a risk in this market. Unlike the Airline Indexes profiled last week, these indexes are lacking a 10/30-week moving average crossover which also tells me it’s early to jump on board.

In any event, the short term daily charts display churning in what seems to resemble a bottom even though the longer term weekly charts leave a lot less to be desired. As with the airlines indexes, the overall market health is still very weak so don’t buy blindly but keep health care and pharmaceutical stocks on your watch list for now. All bottoms must start somewhere and these indexes look to be turning higher or at least establishing a flat trading zone before picking the next direction.

($RXP) Health Care, $1200.25
($DRG) Pharmaceutical Index – AMEX, $260.68
(IYH) Healthcare iShares, $51.59

Several of the stocks listed below are components or holdings of one or more of the indexes and iShares listed above.

(ABT) ABBOTT LABS, 6.39
(AMGN) AMGEN INC., 4.77
(AZN) ASTRAZENECA PLC, 42.20
(BMY) BRISTOL MYERS SQIBB, 3.04
(DNA) GENENTECH INC, 2.89
(FRX) FOREST LABS CL A, 22.97
(GILD) Gilead Sciences, Inc., 3.18
(GSK) GLAXOSMITHKLINE , 36.25
(JNJ) JOHNSON AND JOHNS, 12.9
(LLY) LILLY ELI CO, 32.06
(MDT) MEDTRONIC INC, 3.41
(MRK) MERCK CO INC., 5.00
(PFE) PFIZER INC., 8.99
(SGP) SCHERING PLOUGH, 15.76
(SNY) SANOFI-AVENTIS SA, 30.22
(TEVA) TEVA PHARMACEUTICAL, 42.91
(WYE) WYETH, 3.23